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MARCH 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 53 Workplace Culture and the Environment Creating a comfortable campus for employ- ees is important in China as a part of the over- all strategy to help keep employee turnover at a minimum. High turnover is a real problem for business in China, especially around the Chinese New Year when employees return to their home cities and often do not come back. I was told that turnover at VGT is lower than average for China. VGT strives to make their campus comfortable and provides amenities for the employees, including basketball courts, a small park for walking and relaxing, a veg- etable garden that supplies the employee can- teen with fresh veggies, and comfortable on- site dormitories. In fact, Dudnikov stays in the dorms when working in China. He now splits his time between China and the USA. Employees work 12-hour shifts with one hour-and- a-half break for lunch and another half-hour break. Employees are also provided daily feedback on their performance with a vi- sual grape chart. In China, a lot of factories use this type of grape chart. When an operator hits their KPI targets, they get a blue or green grape. And speaking of green, a real effort is being made here to minimize the waste stream and im- prove the environment. VGT recently invested over $15 million in upgrading its wastewater recycling capabilities and capacity to support the additional factory expansions. They have also installed rooftop solar panels to generate supplemental electric power. Being green and having a low carbon footprint is a goal for ex- ecutive management. A good work environment is also very im- portant to the workers. With so much activity going on, the air quality is quite good. The dis- tinctive PCB shop odor is not present. Local re- gions in China are getting serious about being environmentally friendly more than ever. It is reported that some companies are being asked to move out of certain regions because they can't support the environmental requirements. Meanwhile, VGT recently won an award from the Chinese government for being one of two board shops out of 200 with green production and a low carbon footprint; the other one was a quick-turn shop. On our tour, I asked Mr. Zhou if their waste treatment goal was to be a green, zero-waste factory. Mr. Zhou explained, "Our top three strategies for the facility are to be a smart fac-